It's happening at the Conroe Animal Shelter on Sgt. Ed Holcomb Boulevard.
Nearly one-third of the dogs at the shelter have been euthanized in the past five days.
"All it takes is one, and the whole group can get sick," said Dr. Judith Vinson, a veterinarian.
A deadly stomach virus called parvo was found in several dogs here last Thursday. All the dogs here have been quarantined and 65 had to be euthanized. Many of them were puppies.
"They don't have the body mass that can take up with the diarrhea that comes along with it, so they dehydrate very quickly and it kills puppies very badly," Conroe Police Department Lt. Doug Johnson said.
The virus spreads by dog-to-dog contact, so it's particularly dangerous for kennels. The surviving animals at Conroe Animal Shelter are now separated.
Workers have disinfected the building with bleach. You even have to step in a pan of bleach before entering the kennels.
All adoptions have stopped.
"We could get an animal in here that's asymptomatic, that's not displaying any type of symptoms," Vinson said. "We think it's perfectly healthy; it could pass all the vet stuff that we do when we go to adopt them, and then it could go to a household and wind up infecting something."
Find Pooja on Facebook at PoojaLodhia-Reporter or on Twitter at @impoojalodhia
We worked on this story with help from our partners at Houston Community Newspapers. You can read more in The Courier of Montgomery County.
___________________________________________________________
Take ABC13 with you!
Download our free apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry devices
